Shagai — ankle-bone shooting
The fourth game of Naadam: sheep ankle bones, polished shooting tablets, and a hall that hums like a beehive.
Shagai kharvaa — ankle-bone shooting — joined the official Naadam program alongside the three classic games. Teams flick a small bone tablet (khasaa) from a wooden launcher across roughly 4.7 metres at rows of sheep ankle bones, accompanied by a continuous low chant of encouragement that fills the hall.
The game descends from the universal Mongolian pastime of shagai — ankle bones used for millennia as dice, fortune-telling pieces and children's games. In 2014 the knuckle-bone shooting tradition was inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in its own right.
The shagai hall sits by the archery field near the stadium, competitions run all three days, and entry is free. It is Naadam's best-kept secret: unhurried, hypnotic and deeply local.
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History of Naadam
From military training of the khans' warriors to a UNESCO-inscribed national festival — eight centuries of the three games.
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